SOE announces free month, rewards for players affected by downtime

Despite initial assurances, Sony Online Entertainment eventually confirmed that yes, it did misplace some of your user data recently, and the company feels really, really sorry about that. It can't actually get the data back, of course (that's not how it works), but SOE says it will do its best to make it up to customers with free stuff, as announced on its blog today.

All SOE players will get 30 days of free game time in every game they're subscribed to, in addition to extra play time for every day the servers are down (they've been down since May 2 already). There are also plenty of rewards lined up per game, including special gear and items in DC Universe Online and Star Wars Galaxies plus some special Double XP events in Everquest and Vanguard.

Lifetime subscribers will get another load of in-game currency in addition to all of the other rewards, and Station Access subscribers will get an extra 500 Station Cash. And don't forget about Sony's plan to also offer affected users free identity protection for a year through Debix.